This old school jingle reminds me of a simpler time, when ice cream cost only 60 cents. Or as my father would proclaim during his time, ONLY10 cents!

I was having a bit of fun with acetone and cheap brushes, and attempted to create that ‘water color’ effect on my nails – what I mean by that is to have light layers of colors overlap each other so you get an effortless (and neat!) mix on your tips!

It has a rather 60’s psychedelic look to it but I’ll just call it my Paddle Pop manicure! Instead of a white base (which is the most often used color for water color manicures) I went for a nude base, so it barely covers the nail line but is opaque enough to be a flesh-toned canvas to start with.

This is with morning sunlight, and I’m really loving how the colors blend into each other. The components were:

Nude base: Essie Not Just a Pretty Face (1 thick coat)

Pink: Zoya Layla

Orange: OPI In My Back Pocket

Yellow: Zoya Creamy

Blue: ChG Aquadelic

Top coat: Seche Vite (2 thick coats)

And here’s the super close up shot:

Excuse the bubbling! On the right side of the nail you can see how the yellow blended with the blue to create green. How awesome is that!

And here’s the sunlight shot. This has to be one of my favourite manicures ever. And by favourite I domean favourite. I’ve been staring at my nails all day. A friend commented that it looked like I dipped my nails into water colors!

This method is definitely more fun & less messy than sponging for sure! I’ll probably be experimenting with other colors using the acetone brush dabbing method. For short, it’s the water color technique. Try it yourself and see what you get!